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Armed Forces Bill

moved Amendment No. 163: Page 152, line 34, leave out ““Defence Council”” and insert ““Secretary of State”” The noble Lord said: This is an important clause. It refers to making regulations about obtaining samples from members of the armed services with a view to drug testing. Currently the Defence Council is able to make regulations; the powers are quite wide on the number of samples, the circumstances, the equipment that can be used and the qualifications and training of those who take them. We need to consider the individual rights of our service people and see how we can safeguard them. My amendment seeks to remove these powers from the Defence Council and give them to the Secretary of State. A note which some Members of the Committee may have read on page 20 of the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights raised a much more fundamental question about whether random breath testing was appropriate. I am not raising that question but it highlights the sensitivity of the issue, which is why we need to be careful that we end up with proper parliamentary accountability for changes to the system as they take place. I beg to move.